Onomatopoeiae alter perception of a visual stimulus. Given that language affects emotional processing of visual stimuli and visual textures with high viscocity are perceived disgusting, the present study investigated whether onomatopoeiae that represent viscocity modulate disgust for visual textures. We presented a mimetic word a kind of onomatopoeiae simultaneously with a visual texture, and asked observers to rate disgustingness of the texture visually (Experiments 1, 3, and 4) or auditorily (Experiment 5). Three Japanese mimetic words (betobeto, sarasara, and reherehe) were used for representing high, low, and no viscocities, respectively. The results in Experiments 1,3, and 5 commonly showed that in Japanese observers the rated disgustingness was significantly modulated by the mimetic words. However, the effect was not observed in Chinese observers (Experiment 4). Moreover, Experiment 2 showed that the mimetic words also modulated apparent moistness of the textures. Lastly, Experiment 6 revealed that the mimetic words modulated the disgustingness of the texture within a temporal window of around 1800 ms. The present findings suggest that sound symbolism of onomatopoeiae is integrated with stimulus information that induces disgust regardless of modality.
